"In this world of ours, in which, despite
the profession of good intentions, the value of the person, of human
dignity and human rights is seriously threatened by the widespread
tendency to have recourse exclusively to the criteria of utility, profit
and material possessions, it is important not to detach the concept of
justice from its transcendent roots. Justice, indeed, is not simply a
human convention, since what is just is ultimately determined not by
positive law, but by the profound identity of the human being. It is the
integral vision of man that saves us from falling into a contractual
conception of justice and enables us to locate justice within the
horizon of solidarity and love(6).

We cannot ignore the fact that some currents of modern
culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles,
have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots,
detaching it from charity and solidarity: “The ‘earthly city’ is
promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an
even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of
gratuitousness, mercy and communion. Charity always manifests God’s
love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific
value to all commitment for justice in the world”."

Upplagd av
Josef Bengtson

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Spot on:

"All understanding of reality involves a commitment, a venture of faith. No belief system can be faulted by the fact that it rests on unproved assumptions; what can and must be faulted is the blindness of its proponents to the fact that this is so." - Lesslie Newbigin